Shadow of Wings
by Black Stormraven
Summary: Chloe finally gets a better look at Lucifer's scars. Based on THE SCENE in "Manly Whatnots".


**Written in a day and a half, unedited, too tired to edit, hope you enjoy anyway :)**

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Chloe hadn't gotten a good look at the scars the first time she'd spotted them (in her defense, she'd been a bit more preoccupied trying to _not_ look at a naked Lucifer), but now there was nothing in her way. It had taken a good ten minutes of convincing and coaxing before Lucifer finally removed his shirt ( _oh no, he's gorgeous- STOP IT_ ) and a few more before he would turn to let her see his back; it was like when Trixie didn't want her to look at a cut or a scrape because she didn't want it to hurt when her mother would inevitably clean it.

But Lucifer wasn't a child, as much as Chloe liked to compare him to one when he acted like it. She could see in his eyes that his wound went far deeper than a scraped knee or a cut finger. Curiosity burned in her when he finally turned around, a look on his stupidly handsome face that looked suspiciously like pleading for her not to hurt him. That caused the first crack in her heart. The second came from the sight of the scars themselves. But the final straw was the way the man, who had stared down unrepentant killers and thought being on the business end of a gun was delightful, flinched so violently when she only just barely touched him.

He didn't tell her to stop, though. So, she continued with her exploration.

The skin across his entire upper back was corded and marbled with scar tissue, long healed, but deep. Chloe thought briefly of the bullet wound on her own shoulder; weeks after being discharged from the hospital there was still discoloration and the occasional phantom pain. After a few years, only she would know that there had ever been a wound there at all. But Lucifer's scars...how long had he had them? How deep had the damage gone? He'd said that they were where his wings used to be before he'd had them cut off. While she still thought he was just this side of crazy with all his 'I'm the Devil' nonsense, with her fingertips carefully tracing the lines and grooves of his mangled flesh, it was almost too easy to believe that he just might have been telling the truth.

Chloe soon found herself imagining, absurdly, what he would look like with wings. Would they be dark like his hair, or bright and shining like the sun? Would they be one solid color, or would they be peppered with varying complimentary shades? Would they be feathered like typical depictions of angels, or more bat-like like in that creepy sequence at the end of _Fantasia_? Either way, she was certain that they would suit him, the _real_ him, perfectly.

The tremble of Lucifer's skin beneath her fingers snapped the detective out of her thoughts. She couldn't see his face, but she could read his body language well enough: it was taking everything he had not to run away. She'd seen that look on others before; victims of serious trauma both physical and emotional, sufferers of PTSD. The weight of what she was doing, what she was putting him through hit her like a brick. Really, she had no right to force him to relive painful memories of what had caused his scars. She quickly dropped her hands and made to move away-

"Don't stop?"

Those two simple words were so soft, so quiet, so un-Lucifer-like she was almost sure she'd imagined them. But the hesitant glance he gave her over his shoulder confirmed that he'd actually spoken. _Asked._ Not teased, not demanded, not begged. Simply _asked_.

When her fingertips lighted on him again, the feel of mangled-then-healed skin didn't come as such a shock. His shoulder blades were just as warm as -she imagined- the rest of him. _No, no imagining anything, Decker,_ she chastised herself. This was purely out of curiosity, cold and clinical. Nothing more.

She couldn't convince herself of that lie when Lucifer's trembling subsided the longer she traced the ragged scars, nor when his breathing became less controlled and more natural. The tension slowly ebbed away from his body as if chased away by her touch. Chloe couldn't help mentally laughing at herself for the sappy thought. If Lucifer knew what she was thinking he'd surely make some quip about a kiss making it better.

"Detective?"

The soft question made her blink hard, and realize that she'd stopped moving her hands at some point in her musings. The genuine concern in Lucifer's voice and in his eyes as he looked back at her once again was rather endearing; for the moment, she could forget what an enormous pain-in-the-ass he was any other time. "Chloe," she whispered back. Even more endearing was the way his forehead creased between his eyes when he was confused. "You're trusting me with something this big," -she gently ran the fingers of one hand across his back- "I suppose we can be on a first-name basis."

Chloe braced herself for some snarky comment or frat-boy flirtation when he turned his head a bit more, a light in those dark eyes that normally meant nothing good. What she got was something even more shocking: a smile. Not a grin, not a smirk. A real smile. "All right...Chloe."

Okay, the shiver that went down her spine wasn't because of the way he said her name. And neither was the way her eyes widened and her breath stopped. Not at all. It was just her name. And a smile. And a genuine happiness and contentment that she'd never seen from the man before. There was another explanation for it. There had to be-

All thought stopped when Lucifer turned fully, one of her hands somehow now in both of his. She'd never really looked at his hands before, but now she couldn't stop herself from staring. Warm skin, fingers and palms somewhere between smooth and callused, long fingers perfect for playing piano. She kept staring when he curled those fingers around hers, lifting her hand to his mouth for an old-fashioned, chivalrous kiss to her knuckles. A slow, steady burn began to form in her gut at the contact, a burn that she quickly doused with no small amount of willpower. If this turned out to just be some long-winded attempt to get her into bed yet again-

The thought didn't even complete itself when Lucifer met her eyes. The man was about eighteen different kinds of frustrating and annoying and borderline insane, but there was no ulterior motive in those eyes, in that smile. There was just... "Thank you, Chloe."

She titled her head in confusion. "For what?" She hadn't done anything special.

His smile became a bit more secretive, though no less honest. "Just, thank you."

Whatever his reason for the gratitude, Chloe wasn't going to pick a fight about it. She just gave him a smile in return and a nod of her head. "No problem."

And now came the awkward moment she had feared would pop up. She didn't know what else to say, and he didn't seem inclined to say anything else (a drastic change from his usual motormouth self that she wasn't sure how to handle). And her hand was still cradled against his chest. And the light from the fireplace still danced over his bare skin. _Chloe, back away now. Right now._

It took her a moment longer than she would have liked to pull her hand from his and take that step back. "I should get going," she managed to finally say, though her voice wasn't as strong as she wanted it to be. "It's almost bedtime for Trixie."

It was so much easier to walk away once she turned and he was out of her line of vision. A breath of relief started to escape her chest when Lucifer called out to her. "There's something on the table before you leave." She stopped in her tracks and looked back at him just in time to see him pick up his discarded shirt and make his way to a doorway in the back, most likely his bedroom. "Tell the little monster I said 'goodnight'."

If she didn't know how much he didn't really care for the company of kids, Chloe would have thought that was genuine fondness in his voice. Wait, something on the table?

Sure enough, right there on the table by the door was something she hadn't noticed there before. Her breath stopped when she saw what it was: a young reader's copy of _Beauty and the Beast_. How did Lucifer know that that was Trixie's favorite fairytale? He was already gone when she turned to ask him that very question. All the time she'd spent around him, willingly or not, Chloe had come to simply accept some things about the man. One day she was going to get some straight answers out of him, but not tonight. She was too tired, it was too late, and since there didn't seem to be anything obscene or out of the ordinary with the book, she just let the matter be.

On the drive home, she debated whether or not to tell Trixie that her new book was from Lucifer. She'd already taken a strong liking to him despite her mother's misgivings and he seemed to be fond of her, but Trixie didn't need another reason to fall in love. In the end, as mother and daughter curled up together for storytime, Chloe told her the truth (as if she'd let a simple act of kindness go uncredited, she admitted to herself).

"Once upon a time, in a magical kingdom far, far away, there lived a handsome prince..."


End file.
